


It's All Coming Back To Me

by luverofralts



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 13:38:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5165834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luverofralts/pseuds/luverofralts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Repost from FF.net in 2004</p>
<p>Dib goes away for college and quits the game he and Zim have going. What happens when he finally returns? Songfic</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's All Coming Back To Me

Invader Zim belongs to people who sadly aren’t me, and “It’s All Coming Back to Me” belongs to Celine Dion.

* * *

It was a clear, star filled night, the night he returned. It had been four years since he had been to this small neighborhood, and though the years had passed quickly, it suddenly seemed to the young man that he had been away forever.  
  
 _It was so long ago  
  
But it's all coming back to me  
_  
The odd green house was still there, exactly the way he remembered it. The tacky decorations and the oversized lawn gnomes still stood in their places, watching over the lawn carefully to guard over any intruders. The boy had to wonder if there had even been any one to guard against while he was away. Before he had left, he had been the only visitor this house ever got, and even then, most of the time he visited he had never knocked, preferring instead to break in away from the sight of the gnomes.  
  
 _There were nights when the wind was so cold  
_  
He remembered the scars he had received when he had been too slow and had been caught in the sights of the vicious lawn gnomes. The insane laughter that had usually followed still floated around inside his head the odd time, and he had often found himself wondering what the owner of that laugh was up too while he was away at university.  
  
 _There were days when the sun was so cruel  
_  
In fact, even though he had been thousands of miles away from the strange, green house and it’s strange, green owner, he had often been consumed by his imagination, fearing that he was missing something vitally important. There were days he wondered if he had made the right choice in going away for University, instead of staying within the state to keep a closer eye on matters at home. But he had gone, and there was still a home and a neighborhood and a strange green house to return to, despite all his fears.  
  
 _I just have to admit_  
  
That it's all coming back to me  
  
Bravely, the young adult stepped forward, daring the gnomes to strike him again, if only to relive some of his past. He had been arrogant as a child and had tempted the security systems of this home one too many times, but today there was no response as he carefully made his way towards the door. He dared to ring the doorbell, half expecting some kind of deadly trap to rush out to destroy him, but nothing came. In all of his years away, had the alien grown so trusting of the world around him that he hadn’t even bothered to set his security systems? This was largely out of character for such a paranoid being. The door creaked open a crack to reveal a small creature, no higher than five feet with large, red bug like eyes glaring suspiciously at the person before him. Red eyes met amber and the full impact of their emotions flooded through them almost instantaneously.

“Zim?”

“Dib-monkey?”  
  
 _There were things I'd never do again_  
  
But then they'd always seemed right

Dib had grown to a fair height for a human, just reaching under six feet when he had reached his twenties, but when he looked at his old nemesis, he suddenly felt like the child he had been when they’d first met. Visions of name calling, of water balloons, giant hamsters and bologna all flashed before his eyes as he remembered all that he had left behind. There had been his late night habits of breaking into Zim’s lab and trying to escape with his life. How he had missed the excitement of those days as he pored over book after book in a vain attempt to cram before exams. How he had longed to see the pathetic disguise Zim wore, or hear one of his never ending rants about his superiority. He recalled all the times he had skipped class to spy on the alien, in an attempt to foil his latest plot to take over humanity and remembered the satisfaction he always felt knowing that humanity existed for another day because of him.  
  
 _There were those empty threats and hollow lies_  
  
And whenever you tried to hurt me  
  
I just hurt you even worse  
  
And so much deeper  
  
“You’re back.” Zim’s voice was flat and emotionless despite the surge of emotions he felt going through him as he spoke. “I was beginning to wonder.”

Dib frowned, wondering why he cared if the little alien was hurt by his disappearance. Hadn’t hurting Zim been a factor he had included when choosing a university? He and Zim were enemies and hurting each other was what enemies did, didn’t they? He wasn’t supposed to care.

“Well,” he replied honestly, “I never intended to leave your little mission unmonitored for long. I fast tracked most of my courses, but it usually does take four years to graduate from university.” He felt a smirk appear on his face. “I’m surprised you didn’t go to one yourself. Isn’t part of your grand scheme learning about human knowledge?”

The Irken soldier threw him a tired glance.

“Stupid human, anything I could learn at an inferior Earth place of learning, I could just have easily learned by watching television. Besides, I’ve learned nothing useful in all my years at skool, so why bother continuing? I could use the time to work on my ingenious plans.”

“How are those going anyway?” Dib asked curiously. “Now that I’m back, I guess I should be trying to stop them again, huh?”

“Whatever.”  
  
 _It was lost long ago  
  
But it's all coming back to me  
_  
He tried to brush aside Zim’s casualness, but there was something about the alien’s attitude that bothered him. So what if it had been years since they’d sparred? Who cared if he was expected to act like an adult now instead of the insane child he had been? This was Zim and he would never stop fighting him...right? As a child, and even in his teens, Dib had been consumed with defeating Zim, and Zim had met him every step of the way. In public they’d fight and taunt and cause mild explosions and property damage, knowing that when they woke up the next morning it would all start over again. He would lie awake at night, planning for Zim’s next move, desperate to prove to the world around him that there was alien life, and that he wasn’t really as insane as they made him out be. Through every stage of his life, Zim had been there to focus on, sending everything else that had popped up into the distant background. Skool, work, family, all had been ignored to make room for Zim and the glorious game of cat and mouse they had spent so much time playing. Had his leaving really changed so much between them?  
  
 _But you were history with the slamming of the door  
  
And I made myself so strong again somehow  
  
And I never wasted any of my time on you since then  
_  
Both of them remembered the last day they had spoke as clearly as if it had happened just yesterday. Dib had been sitting at his hi-skool desk, trying his best to ignore the droning of his teacher when Zim had thrown a paper airplane at his head and began snickering loudly. He had been angry and frustrated, so he took the paper plane and wrote the angriest letter he had ever written. If he had known it would end their little game, he would never have written it, but it was too late to take it back now. He angrily scrawled that he was sick of Zim and of playing the games that he secretly loved, and that he was leaving their town and their rivalry behind forever. He wasn’t sure what had motivated him to write such a thing, or use that cruel opportunity to tell Zim about his university choice, but he had and Zim had taken it badly. He hadn’t even threatened Dib on their walk home that day. The next day, Zim wasn’t at skool, or the day after and though he had wanted to find the alien and expose whatever plan he was plotting, packing and other responsibilities had prevented him from doing so. Dib went off to university a week later, never getting a chance to say goodbye to the only friend he had ever had.  
  
 _And I banished every memory you and I had ever made  
_  
He had cried that first lonely night in his dorm, missing the life and the alien he had left behind so badly that it hurt to even think about it. So he tried not to, though that plan had failed miserably. He hadn’t wanted to grow up, or resign himself from his game with Zim, but he had had to. Zim was decades older than him, and Dib would only have his twenties once. Everyone urged him to not waste the best years of his life chasing around a green foreign boy, but deep within him, that was all his heart told him to do. Zim was his equal in every way that mattered, and if that made him insane, so be it.  
  
 _When you see me like this_  
  
And when I see you like that  
  
We see just what we want to see  
  
All coming back to me....  
  
For a long time, the two best enemies stared at each other, noticing the differences time had made to them. The awkward silence almost drove Dib mad, but he couldn’t think of any way to interrupt it. Everything he thought of sounded lame, or inadequate. What did someone say when they had broken the spirit of the person they cared about the most in life? What could he possibly say that would smooth the rift between them?

Dib looked down at his feet awkwardly.

“I meant to say goodbye, Zim,” he said finally. “I...just....”

“Foolish human! Zim needs no goodbyes!” the alien retorted angrily, desperately trying to hide the hurt he felt, but knowing that he’d fail. His antennae twitched nervously, betraying his true feelings. “I was glad to see you go! Glad!”

Zim folded his arms against his chest tightly, and Dib’s shoulders slumped in defeat. He had only one more card to play and if it didn’t work....

“I’m sorry, Zim.” The words felt strange to speak to his greatest enemy, but they were the ones he knew he had to say. They were the ones he’d expect from Zim if Zim had betrayed him. “I didn’t mean what I wrote that day. Your stupid mission was the best thing to ever happen to me.”

Dib dared to look up for a moment, only to see Zim’s iciness begin to melt. He unfolded his arms and blinked as if he were suddenly seeing Dib in a new light.

“Pitiful human,” he scoffed, grinning happily for the first time in four years. “Did you really your letter would mean that much to me, an Invader?” He laughed. “I didn’t even read it. And even if I had, your extended absence was just what I needed to perfect my human disguise! I mean, it’s not like I’d just sit around watching TV for four years, waiting for you to return.”

Dib could hear the familiar metal clanging of GIR in the background.

“But that’s what you did!” the SIR called from within the house. Zim flushed and shook his fist inside the door at the robot.

“You speak madness! GIR! Stop spreading lies!”

Dib beamed, feeling whole again at last. This was where he belonged, pitted in childish rivalry against the inept alien he couldn’t live without. There was just one more thing he had to do before everything could be returned to its former glory.

The flash went off within seconds, blinding the exposed alien temporarily. Four years had passed, but Zim could recognize the familiar flashing of Dib’s camera anywhere. Dib shot Zim a victorious grin before starting down the steps of the house.

“Ha! You should never answer the door without your disguise, Zim!” he called. “Now I’ve got proof, and the world will finally see you for the horrible alien menace that you are!”

Zim’s long neglected spider legs sprouted from their hiding place before Dib had reached the first gnome.

“GIR!” he shouted gleefully as he started after his nemesis. “Activate the gnome field!”  
  
 _If you forgive me all this_  
  
If I forgive you all that  
  
We forgive and forget  
  
And it's all coming back to me now.


End file.
